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By Jonathan Crouch

The EV6 GT is a fitting flagship for Kia. Jonathan Crouch straps himself in.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 39

Kia continues to push the boundaries of its perceived position in the market. Here for instance, in the EV6 GT is a 577bhp Grand Tourer with all the stats, performance and luxury to embarrass a six-figure-priced premium German rival.

Backgroundword count: 197

By some margin, the EV6 GT is the most expensive model Kia has ever sold. Yet looked at in class perspective, you might also consider it to be amongst the best value cars the brand has ever offered. Just look at the numbers of this Gran Turismo-style upper mid-sized EV: 577bhp and rest to 62mph in just 3.5s. There's also 4WD, adaptive damping and an active electronically-controlled limited slip differential that can shift torque across the axle through the corners. To match that kind of CV, you'd need a Porsche Taycan 4S costing a cool £33,000 more. The EV6 GT is the model taking over from the car that, more than any other, proved that Kia could be more than just another mainstream brand. Launched in 2018, the Stinger sold modestly but its halo effect on the brand was considerable. Kia it seemed, really could make a proper Gran Turismo-style luxury car to rival the German premium brands. And the EV6 GT is an even better one. Despite the numbers, it's not all about performance (its close cousin the Hyundai IONIQ 5 N is more track-tamed). There are slightly different priorities here: but still very fast ones.

Driving Experienceword count: 512

There's a very serious powertrain in play here, as the 577bhp output suggests. That's 256bhp above the standard EV6 AWD model that shares its 77.4kWh battery with this GT - but not that battery's so-called 'internal output', defined as the amount of power it can supply to the motors at peak demand; that has almost doubled over an ordinary EV6. Unfortunately though, there's a price to pay for this in terms of driving range, which falls to 263 miles here - a full 51 miles less than you'd get from an ordinary AWD version of this Kia. Still, there are plenty of compensations from the heavier hardware responsible. Two permanent-magnet synchronous motors feature, the main one at the back producing 362bhp thanks to a dual-stage inverter using silicon-carbide semi-conductors. This drives an electronically-controlled limited-slip differential able to shift torque across the back axle - up to 100% of motor power to either rear wheel. A further smaller motor up-front adds up to 215bhp but gets de-coupled under gentle throttle use to aid efficiency. Kia's also developed a new variable-ratio steering rack and a new front axle specifically for this GT. Plus the ride height's been lowered by 5mm and rear anti-roll bar stiffness has been increased by 15%. For ordinary driving, you get the usual three EV6 drive modes - 'Eco' (where power is limited to 288bhp), 'Normal' (where it raises to 460bhp), then 'Sport'. But with this top model, there's an extra setting for when the road opens up - a full-fat 'GT' mode. Engage that and 62mph is just 3.5s away (though you might hope for better given that a Tesla Model Y Performance achieves the same figure with 94bhp less and a Polestar 2 Dual-Motor AWD Performance Pack is only half a second slower with 160bhp less). This Kia's prodigious 2,125kg kerb weight no doubt plays a part in that and it's that weight that inevitably stops this Kia from feeling truly agile on the twisty stuff - in the way its Stinger predecessor managed so often to do. The fairly uncommunicative steering rack doesn't help here either. As you'd expect with an EV, the forward thrust drops off a little after 60mph, but this GT still continues on to a very un-EV-like top speed of 161mph. To scrub off all that speed, there's a very powerful set of green-calipered brakes aided by a brake regeneration system you can control via the steering wheel paddles. As you might hope, adaptive dampers have been added to this GT's spec, one of the parameters you can tailor via a 'My Mode' option on the centre screen. The damping set-up's 9% softer at the front and 11% stiffer at the rear than standard EV6. Big 380/360mm front/rear brake discs deliver prodigious stopping power. And traction is assured not only by the AWD system but also by a grippy set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres wrapped around the big 21-inch wheels. For the times when you don't want traction, there's even the option of a selectable 'Drift mode' for tyre-smoking circuit slides.

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